Confluence export: formats and limits
Choose a Confluence export for sharing, archiving, or migration. Compare Cloud and Data Center formats and check what your destination importer accepts.
TL;DR. Confluence has four ways out: single-page export (PDF or Word), space export, site backup, and the REST API. Choose by destination, not by filename alone. An archive is not a guarantee that another wiki will restore every field. For Raccoon Page, use a supported HTML/XML space export and validate a sample first.
A Confluence export is how you get your content out of Confluence — and the right method depends on whether you want a document to print, an archive to keep, or a wiki to move into. Confluence ships several export paths, each preserving a different slice of what a page actually is. Pick the wrong one and you end up with a beautiful PDF of a wiki you can no longer edit. (If you've ever opened a 400-page space PDF looking for one runbook, you have suffered enough.)
This post walks every export path Confluence offers, what each one keeps and what it quietly drops, and how to land on a format a different wiki can read. We're the company that wants you to import the result, so squint at the recommendation at the end — but the mechanics in the middle are the same no matter where you're going.
Confluence has four doors, not one
People say "export Confluence" as if it's a single button. It isn't. There are four distinct mechanisms, and they sit at different levels of your workspace.
- Single-page export. From any page's more-actions menu, you can export that one page to PDF or Word. This is the door most people find first, because it's the one in front of them on the page they're reading.
- Space export. Choose a format supported by the destination. Cloud and Data Center have different options and permissions; see the edition-specific guidance below.
- Site backup. Treat this as a separate administrative workflow, not as interchangeable input for a third-party space importer.
- The REST API. Confluence exposes page content programmatically. Coverage depends on permissions, endpoints, pagination, attachment handling, and the exporter you use.
Most teams only ever need doors one and two. The decision between them is almost always "am I keeping a document, or am I moving a wiki?" Keep that question in your head for the rest of the post.
Single-page export keeps the look and loses the structure
The single-page export is the fastest door and the most misleading. You open a page, click the three dots, choose Export to PDF or Export to Word, and you have a file in seconds. The file looks right. That's the trap.
PDF is a reading copy, not a working wiki. Check tables, images, and links in the output rather than assuming perfect rendering. PDF is the right answer when you need to send a page to someone outside the wiki — a contract, a one-pager, an audit artifact. It is the wrong answer when you want to move the page.
Word provides a document for editing, not a space backup. Check the downloaded file's compatibility and formatting before reuse. Word export is for the colleague in Legal who wants to redline a policy, not for the engineer rebuilding a knowledge base somewhere else.
Neither single-page path is a migration of the surrounding space. Both are document exports. A wiki page isn't just a document — it's a node in a tree, with links to other nodes, and the export that forgets the tree forgets most of the point.
Space export keeps the tree, the attachments, and most of your sanity
This is the door that matters for migration. Cloud: space admins use Space settings → General → Export space. Available formats are PDF, CSV, HTML, and XML. Atlassian recommends CSV for another Cloud instance and XML for Data Center. Data Center: use its separate export instructions and the Export Space permission.
HTML export produces a static, browsable copy of the space — rendered pages, a navigation index, and the attachments in a folder. You can open it in a browser with no Confluence running. It is useful for archival reading and compatible importers. Do not assume that its file layout exactly matches the original page tree.
XML export is the Confluence-native one. It contains the storage-format representation of content and metadata for a compatible restore or import workflow. It is not meant for humans to read, and opening one in a text editor is a fast way to develop opinions about angle brackets. But what it contains and what a third-party importer preserves are separate questions.
PDF space export flattens the whole space into one long document. It's the archive equivalent of printing your house. Use it when someone in compliance needs "the whole space as of today" in one file and never wants to click anything.
Checked September 28, 2026: Cloud export documentation and Data Center export documentation. Cloud HTML currently omits page comments. Data Center HTML offers optional comments, and XML has different backup coverage. Do not generalize one edition's behavior to the other.
A table for the door you're standing in front of
Here's the whole decision in one place. Find your export method, read across, and you'll know what you're keeping before you click.
| Export method | Useful for | Check before using |
|---|---|---|
| Single-page PDF or Word | Sharing a document | Rendering and recipient compatibility |
| Space HTML | Browsable archive; supported third-party import | Linked files, missing content, and destination fidelity |
| Cloud space CSV | Cloud-to-Cloud migration | Destination requirements; not Raccoon Page Confluence input |
| Space XML | Compatible restore or structured import | Edition compatibility and fields the importer actually uses |
| Space PDF | Reading a space as a document | No editable wiki hierarchy in the destination |
| Site backup | Administrative restore workflow | Do not pass it to a space importer without checking support |
| REST API exporter | Scripted extraction | Coverage, permissions, and ongoing tool maintenance |
The format is only half the decision. Keep an unchanged archive and check what the receiving tool actually creates from it.
The full-site export and the API are for different jobs
Do not treat a site backup or API exporter as a promise to capture everything. A site restore and a third-party wiki migration have different requirements. An API-based tool needs its own coverage review: what it reads, what it skips, and what credentials it needs. For conversion methods, see the existing Confluence-to-Markdown guide.
Markdown on demand is the right shape. Talk-to-sales is the wrong one.
This is the opinion, and it's a hill we'll defend with a number.
Every export path above is, fundamentally, Confluence answering the question "can I have my data back?" Some products answer that question with a self-serve button. Others answer it with a contact form and a calendar invite. Markdown on demand is the right shape; talk-to-sales is the wrong one. A wiki that makes you schedule a call to get your own content out has already told you how it plans to treat you.
Raccoon Page exports a per-space zip of Obsidian-compatible Markdown and per-page Markdown with one click, on every plan, including the Free tier — $0, three users, one space, fifty pages, no card. There's no export tier, no "enterprise data egress" line item, no call. The per-space zip export is right there in Space Settings, and what comes out is a Markdown vault you could read in a text editor or drop into any tool that reads Markdown. We built it that way on purpose. You're never locked in, which is easy to say and harder to ship — so we shipped it, and then we wrote it down.
The contrast we keep in-house has a name. In Raccoon Corp lore, Bandito von Scavengix has seen things in Confluence export files — specifically the raccoon-to-rabbit emoji incident, where an inherited "small-mammal normalisation" lookup table in an export helper quietly turned every raccoon emoji into a rabbit. PR #2 was the fix: delete the table, because we're an employer that includes raccoons. The lesson generalises. An export that silently changes your content into a different animal isn't an export. It's a betrayal with a progress bar.
When you should not export at all
Honest section, because the export you don't run is sometimes the right call.
If your team is heavily on Jira and the Jira-and-Confluence loop is doing real work, exporting your wiki to leave is solving the wrong problem. The integration is the moat, and the speed pain you're feeling may not be worth unwinding twenty linked spaces. Stay, and revisit in a year.
If you only need to share one page with someone outside the wiki, don't export the space — export the single page to PDF and email it. Running a full migration to hand a contractor one runbook is the export equivalent of moving house to change a lightbulb.
And if you're exporting because search is bad and pages are slow, be honest about whether a new tool fixes the cause or just moves the symptom somewhere prettier. The migration is real work. Run it when the destination is decided, not as a way of avoiding the decision. Our Confluence alternatives roundup is the read for where to land before you pull anything out.
Reaching a format a new wiki can read
If you've decided to move, the path is short. You don't need PDF, you don't need Word, and you almost certainly don't need the API. You need the space HTML or XML export and an importer that reads it.
Run the space export from Space Settings. Download the zip. Then hand it to the destination wiki's importer, which does the conversion you'd otherwise be scripting: rendered HTML or storage XML in, structured Markdown-compatible content out, page tree and attachments preserved. The Confluence import into Raccoon Page reads the export, keeps the folder hierarchy and images, and converts the most common macros — info, tip, note, and warning callouts, code blocks, status macros — on a best-effort basis. It does not restore original authorship, permissions, comments, or edit history. Check the importer limits and test a small sample before moving the team. Confluence import is on Team and Business; the 14-day Team trial retains Free-plan numeric limits.
The export is the easy half. The hard half is the team agreement — deciding to leave, picking where to go, getting everyone to write in the new place. No export format solves that. But once the agreement is made, leave time to validate the result.
Things people actually ask
How do I export a single Confluence page? Use the page's more-actions menu and choose a PDF or Word export. These are document-sharing paths, not a migration of the surrounding space. Check the output before distributing it.
How do I export a whole Confluence space? Cloud space admins use Space settings → General → Export space, with PDF, CSV, HTML, or XML options. Data Center uses its own export workflow and Export Space permission. Follow the documentation for your edition.
What is the difference between Confluence HTML and XML export? HTML is a browsable archive; XML is structured Confluence data. An importer may read either without preserving every field. Raccoon Page accepts both, but does not restore original authorship or version history.
Can I export Confluence to Markdown? Use a conversion tool or API exporter if you need Markdown files. If you are moving to Raccoon Page, its Confluence importer accepts HTML/XML directly; Markdown export is a separate action after import.
Does Confluence export keep attachments and images? HTML and XML space exports can carry attachments. Check the downloaded files and important image links, then check them again in the destination. A rendered image in a PDF is not an editable attachment library.
How long does it take to export a Confluence space? Duration depends on the content, attachments, and processing workload. Allow separate time for the source export, download, destination import, and validation. No fixed completion time is promised here.
What does Confluence export lose? Check the chosen format and the receiving tool separately. Live integrations and macros may become static content or placeholders. Do not assume original permissions or edit history will be restored. PDF and Word do not migrate the surrounding wiki hierarchy.
Do I need admin rights to export Confluence? Permissions depend on the edition and export path. Cloud space export is an admin workflow; Data Center requires Export Space permission. Ask your administrator when the option or required content is unavailable.
Confluence has more ways out than people think, and most of them keep less than people hope. PDF for the page you're mailing, HTML or XML for the wiki you're moving, the API for the script you'd rather not write. Pick the door by the question — document, or wiki? — and check the result before retiring the source. If the answer is wiki, the Confluence import guide is the next walk from the export you just ran to a wiki that hands your content back the same way it took it in: as Markdown, on demand, no call required. Bandito will check it for rabbits.
Written by The Editorial Raccoon — house style for Raccoon Page. Numbers and claims pulled from product reality; jokes pulled from the Raccoon Corp canon. No raccoons were quoted in real life.